Innovation At Heathrow

5 September 2013

A ‘Fantasy Football League’-style scheme for good ideas is stimulating creativity among the Costain team on the Heathrow Airport programme of works.

Costain's strategy 'Engineering Tomorrow' is driving innovation forward as a way of delivering business excellence to clients. Since the end of last year an ‘innovation league table’ showing the top innovators has been on the wall at the Heathrow office.

The league is a platform for the team to share its ideas and best practice from one project to another on the Heathrow framework and throughout Costain’s supply chain.

Divya Gupta, Costain Heathrow Innovation Champion, explains: “Think of it as a kind of fantasy football league for ideas, except that the ideas are real and so are the achievements.”

Points are given for the introduction of an idea (1 pt), implementation of the idea (2 pts) and the success of the idea (2 pts). The league is also open to the supply chain and employees of Heathrow Airport who wish to participate.

To put forward an idea, they fill in a template detailing their suggestion and the benefits it may bring in areas such as costs or health and safety.

There are no prizes for coming up with ideas, but seeing their names on the leader board has been very motivating in encouraging suggestions, said Gupta, a Graduate Civil Engineer. Fellow Graduate Civil Engineer, Karin Jones, administers the ‘league’.

“It definitely encourages the flow of ideas,” she said.

Best practice and innovative ideas are shared with Heathrow and other stakeholders at monthly contractor quality meetings at the airport.

The ideas are certainly doing no harm when it comes to Costain’s traditional focus on health and safety excellence. The Costain Airports Sector Team secured two RoSPA Gold Awards this year.

The awards recognised the success of initiatives like Costain Behavioural Safety, where everyone in the business – from employees, customers and the supply chain – understands the importance of taking responsibility not only for their own safety but also for the safety of those around them.